The Writing Prompt Boot Camp

Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 265

Sorry for the late prompt. It’s just “that time of the year,” I guess. Putting books together, reading through poems, getting ready for week-long camps with the kiddos–oh yeah, and buying a house! No braking for summer over here, but it’s been fun–and I hope you’re having a good summer too.

For this week’s prompt, write a tribute poem, whether it’s to someone living or deceased. Also, I suppose it’s fine to write a tribute poem to non-humans and inanimate objects (why not?), but it should be a tribute of some sort. Some poets call these odes, I guess, but you do what you want and call it what you like.

Here’s my attempt at a Tribute Poem:

what goes up
must come down
unless it’s filled
with helium
or propelled
by a rocket
or held aloft
by a jet stream

what goes down
doesn’t have to
stay down
forever and you
clever understood
that so well
with your mines
and your wells

i’m not sad
to see you leave
because i truly
do believe
what i read
with my own eyes
you will rise
still you rise

*****

Robert Lee Brewer

Robert Lee Brewer is the author of Solving the World’s Problems and Senior Content Editor of the Writer’s Digest Writing Community. This week’s prompt was inspired by the recent loss of poet Maya Angelou, and this tribute poem pays respect to her and her fabulous poem, “Still I Rise.”

Things take on meaning when mixed with life. I like the way this sonnet contrasts desirable objects with ordinary objects that have a meaning bestowed on them by life and love. I also like the way you have disguised the sonnet much as the meaning of the objects would be opaque to an outside observer.

Thru the window I see.
See what has come to be.
A house filled
Filled with all I could build.
I can see all I hold.
Hold dear behind the curtain’s fold.
All I ever need,
Need to live indeed.
It is certain,
Certain behind that curtain.
In the light there,
There sitting in the chair.
My wife,
Wifeー love of my life.
Without her,
Her long red hair.
Brown eyes,
Eyes of heaven in disguise,
That window,
Window wouldn’t have that glow.
And I wouldn’t feel,
Feel that I heal.
After the real,
Real day of having to deal.
A moment fleeting,
Fleeting though it is my greeting.
Up the drive,
Drive up at five.
Home,
Home from work,
Work to see her, my job’s best perk.

Folksinger, how’d ya do? You say you had
A time. I’d say a time and hammer time.
Plus flowers gone away. Where have they gone?
You friended Woody, Jackson, Bruce, and Bob
And taught ‘em. You were best of eversong.
Loved people. Causes, great ones. Overcame.
Dear Pete, you get my vote for finest man.
I saw and heard you, Austin, eighty-four
it was, so glad, your spirit gave bright clear:
the emanations of the truth and love.
America’s most wondrous voice, and hands
upon the banjo and guitar and pulse.

Fought fascists with a forceful music, then
Charmed children. Oh, I miss you, old sage beard!

*Pete Seeger wrote many great songs, but not “How Can I Keep from Singing?” Still, like many other songs he picked up, he made it his own, then gave it to the world. I’m singing. Thank you, Pete.